Mirrors, Apples, Human Hearts
by LastSaskatchewanSpacePirate
Summary: Sherlock Snow White AU. The castle is Moriarty's. The fairest in the land escapes. Sebastian Moran sends a Huntsman to bring him back.
1. Chapter I

**CHAPTER I**

It was a long winter.

The skies were often grey, and in the night they were black. There were few stars: it was though the constellations themselves were suffering. The cold was bitter and the snow was plentiful, blanketing the kingdom in a white that would soon be turned to grey under the wheels of carriages and the feet of the townspeople. The town was white, and white turned to grey, and this repeated itself daily as the snow fell, white and grey, white and grey. There were not many jobs to be had for the people of the village, and despite the kindness of their Queen, who gave often to the poor, it was a luxury to keep even a candle burning once daylight had fallen. Daylight fell very early, and there were no candles. The village was black. There were not many stars.

Crops, cattle, and children all grew sick and died. The villagers drank melted snow, because it was too arduous a task to travel through the snow to draw water from the well. There was nothing to eat; they went hungry. For breakfast, lunch, and supper there was melted snow and occasionally there was bread: just enough to live. But not enough for everyone to live. There was much death. The ground was too hard for burial, and no one was strong enough to dig. Bodies were burned.

The Queen watched all of this happen with a heavy heart. She gave what he could to the people of the village, but the winter was hard for her family as well. The Queen was very ill. She was dying. The King sent for the best medicine, the best doctors, but the journey was too difficult for any of them to make quickly. Time was not in their favour. The castle was cold in the winter, when the cruel wind came in through the stone walls. There was not much wood. The King had always relied on wood from the village to heat his castle, but the villagers were too weak to cut down the trees. There was no hope of collecting wood from the ground. All was buried in snow: hearts and souls as well as the trees and the chopping blocks.

People questioned if the winter would ever end. The snow fell harder. The queen grew weaker. In the village, there was no more bread, no more wood. People warmed themselves at the funeral pyre, holding their hands out to the flaming corpses of a thousand dead, praying the fire would warm them enough to keep them alive one more night. Praying that tommorow it would not be the bodies of their children burned to warm those who were left.

And yet in this darkness, there was one spot of light: one star that was left. It was a child, the second son of the King and Queen, the little Prince of the castle. He was only a boy, and although he was a Prince, he too felt often the cold. But he did not cry, he did not fear. The child was happy, a bright, inquisitive boy with a sharp laugh and quick spirit, and the villagers smiled when they saw him. He was a beautiful child with wild dark curls, black as night. His skin was fair and smooth: so pale that it put even the whitest of the snow to shame. His small lips were deep red, his eyes very blue. He was a delicate slip of a boy, more resembling the birds that he loved to feed than a human being. His mother was dying, and the snow was very cold. His father was often cruel, and it would be his brother who inherited the throne. But he was happy.

His name was Sherlock, this little boy who was still smiling. It seemed to the villagers who saw him that he would smile forever. They had no candles: he was their light. There were no stars, so for the villagers he became their star. As he raced across the white snow, delighting in the birds who sang in the trees, holding out palmfuls of breadcrumbs to feed them, he brought them renewed spirits and renewed hope. Surely, they thought, he will make it through the winter, this little boy who smiles. And they were glad.

The winter became colder, and still Sherlock smiled. There was no more bread to feed the birds, so he watched them instead, still happy. Even when the illness finally took his mother, the Queen, the birds could still make him happy. The castle and the village fell into deepest mourning, and yet still the little boy would come, often with tears freezing on his cheeks in the cold, and in his mourning clothes he would feed the blackbirds food from his own plate. And this would make him smile. Those villagers that still lived would watch him and they would find joy in it. It was the only joy they had left.

That was when he came. Moriarty.

It was his armies, rather, who came first: a thousand faceless figures, clad in black, pouring through the village and into the castle like a swarm of flies. The King had his own armies, but the winter had been hard. He had lost many. The defences were weak., and Moriarty's armies fought their way through, swords flashing in the air, cutting, killing. And in this way they moved through the kingdom and one by one every single knight was slain. The grey snow was red.

They knew nothing of the attacker except the name of the man who had sent his armies to them. Moriarty. A whisper, a ghost. He was not among them. But if the men he had sent would pause in their massacre to speak to you before killing you, they would say it proudly. Moriarty. They were Moriarty's, the blades that flashed and killed were Moriarty's, the red in the snow was Moriarty's. But the man himself did not appear. Perhaps he truly was a ghost.

Mycroft, the oldest son, had taken Sherlock into the boy's little bedchamber. "Stay here." he had said to his little brother. "You must get under the bed, quickly, and you musn't make a sound." Sherlock was terrified. He did not smile. He cried. "Don't go." he begged his brother. Tears stain his ivory cheeks. "Please do not leave me."

"I will come back for you." promised Mycroft, and he kissed little Sherlock on the head, in the tangle of his raven curls, and then he helped his little brother under the bed and he drew his sword and left the room. Sherlock was left behind. He lay still, flat on his stomach on the stone floor. There were many noises outside, and more beneath him, under the floor, and he trembled. He took care to stay very still and quiet, as he had promised his brother. He cried silently. He made no sound.

Sherlock's bedroom had one window, and it was open so that the bitter cold of the winter blew in. Sherlock was shaking on the cold stone, but he did not dare move to close it. Through the window he could hear very clearly the sounds from outside: the people slain and dying, and the relentless march of the faceless army.

And then the door of his chamber flies open with a heavy bang, and Sherlock goes very still and very scared under the bed. He sees the boots of the men who enter, sees them storm into the room, three pairs of boots all the same. He is crying, but he makes no sound.

They find him anyways. A pair of black boots stop near the bed, and little Sherlock, huddled underneath, can barely breathe through fear. And then the man bends, and Sherlock sees his horrible face leering from under the bedskirt, a face cast in shadow with horrible shining eyes and Sherlock screams at the top of his voice as a huge thick hand seizes his ankles and he is dragged out from under the bed.

The man holding him laughs, and Sherlock cries, trying to scramble away and hurting his knees on the rough stone floor. "Stand up." says the man, and Sherlock is made to stand. The man who had grabbed him has blonde hair and an ugly scar from his brow down to his chin. Sherlock trembles. But he tries to be brave.

"Release me!" he commands in his small voice. "My father is the king."

But the man with the scar only laughs. "The king is dead, little one." he says, and he laughs as he says it and shows his horrible ugly teeth. "Would you like to see?"

And Sherlock is grabbed again with rough hands and made to walk into the chamber opposite: the large chamber where the king sleeps, and there is Sherlock's father on the ground, his robes drenched in blood, his eyes unseeing. And there is Mycroft, injured but alive, on his knees beside his father's head.

"Mycroft!" screams Sherlock, and tries to go to him, but he is held back. The man with the scar smiles very broadly. "You see what your father has become?" he says. "You see what has happened to your king? And soon you will be the same." And he ordered the two men with him to each take one of the princes and to take them into their rooms and kill them.

Mycroft was led away by one man, and though Sherlock screamed and cried and fought, he was still very small, and the other man picked him up very roughly and carried him away. The man with the scar stayed behind in the largest chamber, leering at the dead body of the King.

It is worth knowing that even in the most cruel of men, compassion can be found in their hearts. Such was the case with the man who had been ordered to kill Sherlock. As he drew his sword and looked at the boy, at the ivory skin and the raven's wing curls and the bright blue eyes, he saw only a little child, trembling in fear. He was so small, Sherlock, so innocent and pure, and the man sheathed his sword and could not bear to kill him. "Run away." he says to the boy, opening the window. "I will let you run." This man knew that a child would not last long in the thick of the battle. But in letting him leave through the window, he would not have to slay the boy himself.

Sherlock did not go through the window, but instead ran to the door, calling for his brother. But the man grabbed him from behind. "Your brother is dead." he said. "Run while you have the chance, or I shall kill you after all." And Sherlock began to sob, because he knew that his brother had been killed. But he climbed out the window, and the man with the black boots shut it behind him and went back and told the others that he had killed the child.

It was horribly cold outside, and the snow on the ground was crimson with blood. There was no one left to fight. The castle was Moriarty's. No soul was left standing, save for one.

Little Sherlock was perched on a ledge, far above one of the doorways. From a distance, he looked like he might be a bird. But no one was looking at him. He had learned to climb very well, so that he might get closer to the birds he so loved to watch, and one could often find him perched precariously on the highest ledges of the castle walls. From there he could climb swiftly down to the ground when his mother called him in for dinner, but Sherlock did not want to climb down to the ground. His mother was gone, and the ground was wet with blood. Sherlock stayed on the ledge, curled up. He had no shoes and his little feet were blue with the cold, but still he did not come down. He was very frightened.

And that was when Moriarty came at last.

From the ledge, Sherlock watched him. The army stood at attention, stepping back to allow him passage. Moriarty wore a huge, long black cloak, and it dragged in the snow as he climbed the castle steps. The hair on the top of his head was shiny black. The courtyard was silent as Moriarty walked, his cloak slithering on the snow like a snake. Sherlock held his breath, terrified.

Moriarty walked into the castle.

Sherlock climbed nimbly up the side of the building, quick and agile. He climbed through a window and hurried along the corridors in his bare feet, praying that there was someone left alive, someone in the castle who could help him. He ran to the kitchen, where the cook had once given him breadcrumbs for the birds, and found the man dead on the floor, cut open. He ran to the chamber where the maids slept, the ones who played with him when his brother was busy, and found them all dead. He ran up the stairs faster than he had thought he could run, throwing open doors, but everywhere there were only lifeless bodies. They had been dragged into piles, heaped together in stacks of corpses. His bare feet got wet with the blood. No one left.

At last he came to the floor where his chamber was, and he ran into Mycroft's room. Mycroft was not there. But there was blood on the floor, lots of blood, smeared across the stones. Sherlock fell on his knees. Mycroft's blood. His own blood: for they shared a blood type. He cried and dipped his hands in the pool of blood. Against his ivory skin, it was very red.

Mycroft's body was not there. He must be in one of the piles, realized Sherlock. They had dragged him into a pile. It was not right. The crown prince of the kingdom should be laid to rest in his own bed. Sherlock crawled under the bed and curled up to cry.

That was where Moriarty found him.

* * *

To Be Continued.

Thank you for reading. I hope everyone enjoyed the story so far! Never fear, Lestrade will show up soon enough. (I can never keep him away for long, lovely guy.) I know that this is not 100% faithful to the original fairytale: I do not intend it to be! My inspiration is drawn from many different adaptations of the story, as well as some of my own ideas. It seems to be following a path closer to the Snow White and The Huntsman film than the original fable, but I have only seen that film once: do not expect the story to mirror that film either! :) Chris Hemsworth was very nice in that.

I realize this chapter was a bit short, but I hope the next few will be longer. It would be very lovely if you could tell me what you thought :) Many thanks for taking the time to read!


	2. Chapter II

**CHAPTER II**

It was not an ordinary mirror.

The King sat upon his great throne in the castle's largest chamber. There was a fire in the hearth, and the dancing flames threw great shadows on the stone walls. The fire was reflected in the polished surface of the mirror. The King watched it dance.

On his head he wore a golden crown, set with all manner of lavish stones. The light of the fire was caught also in the precious gems he wore round his brow, and it made them shine. A sceptre lay across his lap. Cloaked in midnight black, the King sat still as a statue. You would have thought that man, crown, and sceptre alike were carved from marble.

This was Moriarty.

He did have the look of a marble sculpture about him, with a long, sculpted neck and pale, pale skin. His hair was shiny and sleek, his eyes very black. They glittered, like bird's eyes, or beetle's eyes.

He was watching the mirror.

There was a great bowl of apples on the table near his throne, one of the castle's very best bowls: gold inlaid with rubies, and full to the brim of perfect apples. They were a very very deep red, a wine-red. These were not ordinary fruit; they were not picked from the apple trees in the village. The king polished them daily, and so the deep red skin of every apple shone like a diamond.

The King picked up an apple in one hand. He caressed the fruit with his long fingers, admiring the way it shone. He had very sharp nails that he filed into points, like an animal. The apple was warm in his hand. And the King spoke.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall."

The firelight danced.

"Who is the fairest of them all?"

This King was very vain, you will see, this King sculpted from marble, and knowing he was the fairest in the land he would often ask his mirror this very question just so that he might hear confirmation: he is the fairest, the most beautiful, his skin the most pale, his hair the darkest. Every day since he had become king he had asked the mirror this question – for it was not, you know, an ordinary mirror – and the mirror had replied "You, my Lord, you are the fairest.", and the King had been satisfied.

"You are very fair." said the mirror today, and Moriarty tips his head to one side. He moves as a reptile does, as a serpent. "But there is one who is fairer."

At these words the King was filled with rage, and he screamed and crushed the apple in his hand. Though his thin hands appeared delicate, they were strong. "Who!?" he screamed. The juice of the apple runs down his pale wrist. "Who can be more fair!? Show me!"

And this is what the mirror showed him.

* * *

From outside the window, Sherlock could hear birds.

The prince was a young man now: it had been many years since the Cold Winter (as it had come to be known) and Moriarty's coming. He was no longer a boy. And he was no longer happy. He did not smile, did not laugh, but was instead as cold and as harsh as the winter that had marked the end of his freedom. He was kept, locked in the highest room of the highest tower, a prisoner in his own kingdom. The room was small and circular and had only one window, sealed with iron bars. It was from this window that he could hear the birds.

But he could not see them. The window was very high, and he could not reach it. He sat on the stone floor, head bowed, knees drawn up to his chest, and he listened. Sherlock had nothing to wear but filthy rags, he owned no shoes and went barefoot. He had a mattress to sleep on, and a candle. Twice a day, a man would bring him scraps to eat, and this was how he lived.

He grew bitter and angry, at his captors, at his family, at himself. Often he chided himself for not having run when he had had the chance: such a stupid little boy he had been, so full of hope. He hated his father with a passion: the man who had not loved him and who had allowed this to happen. He hated his brother for leaving him under that bed sixteen years ago, for not fighting harder. And he hated his mother because she had died and had left him alone in the world. He hated all of them for dying, and he hated those who had killed them, and he hated himself for having survived.

He was still beautiful. Beneath the dirt and the filth, his porcelain skin was white and pure as snow. His lips were blood red, his eyes very blue, veiled by long dark lashes. His hair was a tangled mess of raven's wing curls but they were beautiful too and he looked more like a china doll than a man. There is a certain charm to be found in the toy dolls of careless children: a careful child will keep their doll pristine and neat, but a doll who has been cracked and broken and dragged through dirt is somehow more beautiful for the abuse. Such was the case with Sherlock. His face was hollow and gaunt, he was bruised and dirty and terribly thin. The skin white as snow was stretched taut over his sharp bones. But he was beautiful.

Sherlock had had nothing for those sixteen years, and in all that time there had been one thing alone to occupy his thoughts, and he had clung to it and delighted in it and become obsessed with it, and this one thing was a name.

Moriarty.

It was all that he had, but he held onto it, and clutched it to his heart and dreamed of it and traced the letter on the back of his hand with his dirty fingernails. Moriarty. Only a name, nothing more, but it was something, and it was his, and he whispered the name in sleep and scratched it into the stone floor with a rock,_ Moriarty_. He was a prisoner of Moriarty. All he had ever seen of the man was a long black cloak and the top of a head, but he imagined to himself what Moriarty must look like: conjuring a terrible face in his dreams, and this was how he lived for sixteen years, dreaming of Moriarty and listening to birds.

* * *

"The boy." spat the King, "And you tell me he is fairer than I?" His black eyes glittered with malice as he stared into the glass. Skin white as snow, hair dark as night. He trembled in rage. His hand had crushed the red apple into pulp, and he let it fall to the floor. The answer was simple enough. The boy had to be killed.

The King called for Sebastian.

Sebastian Moran was in turn the King's henchman, his manservant and his partner. He was the most valued of the King's many subjects, and may be considered the second in command of the kingdom. Sherlock knows him already, though not by name. We have referred to him until now as the man with the scar: the one who had dragged Sherlock from under the bed sixteen years ago, the one who had laughed. His hair was blonde, and he had a terrible scar down one half of his face. He was ugly, simple and cruel, but he was strong and loyal and he loved the King with all of his heart.

Sebastian came at once: it was a privilege for him to run to his King's side. He bows to Moriarty, as was custom. "My Lord, did you call?"

"You will fetch me the boy." commands the King.

"The prisoner, sir?"

"Yes."

Sebastian bowed again, deeply, and left the room.

The rock that Sherlock had used to carve Moriarty's name into the floor had once been a part of the stone wall of the tower. One of the stones had begun to crumble and a sliver of it had come loose, and it was this that Sherlock used to write the name of the man who had imprisoned him, and he went over it every day so that the writing was very deep and the rock was very sharp.

This is what he was doing when Sebastian came to fetch him. Sherlock heard the footfalls on the stairs, and paused in his carving, crouched on the dirty floor like a wild animal. He listens. Are they bringing him dinner already? It is still the afternoon. The footsteps are different as well: it is not the man who is usually sent to feed him. This man walks with a slight limp. Sherlock rises from his crouched position and presses a cautious ear to the heavy door. There was no rattle of silver that meant food was being brought. He is nervous, and his heart beats a bit quicker. What could they want with him? He had been left more or less alone for sixteen years. What could they want with him now?

There is the noise of keys in the lock, and the door flies open. Sherlock skitters backward, much like a frightened deer might, pressing himself against the opposite wall.

It is, of course, Sebastian.

The man leers at him, and Sherlock, recognizing the scar, gasps before he can help himself. Sebastian smiles broadly, but it is not a pleasant smile. It is horrible and crooked and it makes Sherlock shiver. "Come on, then." he says, taking a step toward the trembling prisoner. "Come with me"

"Where?" He has not used his voice in a very long time. It is raw and fragile when he speaks.

Sebastian smiles more widely, showing his yellow teeth. "I'm under orders to bring you inside."

"Who's orders?"

Sebastian does not reply. Perhaps he should have: perhaps Sherlock's fascination with the man called Moriarty would have overpowered his instinct to flee, and he would have come quietly. But Sebastian had decided that he had no more time for questions. He lunges, quick as a snake, and wraps one huge hand around Sherlock's bony arm. He yanks on the arm he is holding, hard enough to bring tears to Sherlock's eyes, and this is his next mistake because Sherlock panics and lashes out with the rock he still clutches in his hand.

The jagged stone finds it's mark, splitting open the long-healed scar that runs lengthwise down Sebastian's face, and the man howls in pain and releases Sherlock. The door of the chamber is open. Sherlock has only a split second.

He runs.

Down, down, down, down the spiral stairs, bare feet fumbling on the stone, adrenaline pounding in his heart. Out the door of the tower, across the grounds, feet flying across the snow. He runs harder and faster than he has ever run in his life, and he does not dare look back. Sherlock is free for the first time in sixteen years. But only so long as he can run.

His feet find a path he recognizes: the path that takes him to the village, but it is at least an hour to get there, even running, and Sebastian is behind him and already his body is failing him. He stumbles, his legs weak, dizzy and frightened. A bird shrieks overhead. His vision is blurring, he becomes disoriented. There is nowhere for him to go.

Unless -

Oh, unless -

He changes his course and he runs into the forest.

Sebastian did not follow him. Just as the mirror was not an ordinary mirror and the apples were not ordinary apples, this forest was not an ordinary forest, and the ground was not made for the feet of men. There were trees, and birds, as with all forests, and the ground was blanketed with pine needles and snow. But there were things hidden in the trees, hidden in the shadows, and it was these shadowy things that made the forest extraordinary.

There were creatures that lived there, terrible creatures, concealed in the dark and they tore the flesh from your bones as you still lived. There were monsters and demons and serpents and nightmares, and there were holes into which you would fall forever and paths that went round and round in circles so that you walked and walked, thinking you found find a way out soon only to find that there was none. You were doomed. No man, no woman, no child, no creature of the village who had ever come into the forest had left it alive. The birds alone could come and go as they pleased. But it was said that nothing stayed dead for long in the forest: that in it's shadows there were dead things that came alive. And sometimes at night, things could be heard, rustlings, creatures prowling, and here and there, you would meet someone who would swear up and down about the terrible screams they had heard from the trees.

Old stories, rumours, legends, but there was enough truth in them that the forest was given a wide berth by all. It was, if nothing else, a very large and a very dark forest, and it was extraordinarily difficult to navigate. It was assumed that most of the villagers who had disappeared into it's depths (for there were many – that was the truth) had simply lost their way and been unable to find their way back. No one in all of the kingdom could find their way through those trees.

So Sebastian, unwilling to take the risk, did not follow him. "The boy will be dead within the day, in any case." he said to himself. "The fool." And he went back to the castle to nurse the wound Sherlock had given him with the rock.

But Moriarty was angry. The job had not been done as he had wished it to be done, and he screamed in anger and in rage. The fire crackles in the hearth. "Please, Sir." implored Sebastian, and although he was much larger than the King he shook in fear. "It was not my fault, he had attacked me, the little brute, but he has gone into the forest and your problem is solved. It is impossible that he could survive in the forest. He will be dead before nightfall, I promise you."

The King did not answer. Instead he turned to his mirror in a swirl of his dark cloak and screamed at the glass. "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all!?"

He turned to Sebastian, anger shining in the depths of his black eyes. The mirror had again shown an image of Sherlock. "There, he still lives."

"Not for long." promises Sebastian.

"Yes." says the King, picking an apple out of the dish. "You will ensure it. You will go, and you will bring me his heart."

"Sir, I cannot. I do not know the forest."

Moriarty digs his nails into the flesh of the apple. "Then find me one who does."

* * *

Very few of the villagers remember life before Moriarty had come to the castle, as very few had survived the Cold Winter. But there were a handful who did, and among this handful there was a man by the name of Lestrade.

Most of those villagers who could remember a time before Moriarty had been children during the Cold Winter, but Lestrade had been already a man: Thirty-three years old when Moriarty had been crowned king and was today getting a bit older in years, though he showed none of his age. His father had been a carpenter, and Lestrade was born very strong. In the years before Moriarty's rule he had earned his life hunting and cutting wood for the hearth of the castle. During the Cold Winter, he had been one of the only men strong enough to continue cutting wood, and it was thanks to more Lestrade than anyone that the castle had come to be heated during that dark time. He had strong muscles, especially in his arms, and he could run and move with a vigour most men his age had lost. The King had paid him well for his efforts, and although he and his wife had struggled during that winter, they had had enough for bread and the terrible hunger that had taken so many did not harm them, even though Lestrade would often give away more than he would eat.

Because Lestrade was a kind man as well as a strong one, and Lestrade was a man who loved children, and he had wept bitterly when he saw the suffering of the children in the village, even though they were not his own. Often during that terrible winter he had given his money and his food to the little children in the streets, the barefooted beggars who lost their brothers and sisters almost daily. There were many days he went without eating because he had given all that he had. Far too often, it was to no avail: too often the children died in spite of his kindness. There were days he would walk through the streets and see laid out the corpses of the children he had given his supper to only the day before. It hurt him to see, and on those days he would work harder than he had the day before, cutting more wood so that he might have more money to give away more food. He began to eat very little himself. Candles, linens, soaps, all these things could buy more bread, and so he went without. He was perhaps at that time the wealthiest man in the village, but he lived as a pauper so that the children of the village might eat.

But despite his kindness, Lestrade was not a happy man. Although he loved all children dearly he was unable to bear children, and had none of his own. His wife had left him for a blacksmith during the Winter, and he had been heartbroken. In the end, the Cold Winter had taken both his wife and the blacksmith: they had grown ill and died along with the children he had fought so hard to save, and when Spring came at last he was very much alone in the world.

They had burned her body, as they had burned every body before her. He had stood at the window of his cottage and watched the small circle of villagers stand around the fire, warming their hands at the flames that lept from the remains of the woman he had loved.

We have mentioned that his age was scarcely visible on his body, but that is not altogether true. His eyes show the sadness he has carried with him since that winter, and those eyes are the eyes of a very old man. There is also the matter of his hair: which is no longer brown, but entirely grey. He is known in the village, particularly to the children, as Silverhair or Silverhead, and this is not a name given in cruelty, but in love, because they know that the man with the silver hair is a good man, and that he is kind.

As it has been told, he is kind, but he is lonely, and Lestrade stays often indoors, alone in his home, away from the others. Gossip is passed around, as is expected, but he stays in his cottage and hears none of it. He is reclusive and silent. He still hunts and cuts wood, but when his day's work is done he retreats back to his home and speaks to no one. The village children alone can entice him out of his cottage to play and to smile and to talk. He does not speak often to adults, and they let him be.

So it is a surprise when there is a knocking at his door, and it is a loud knock, not the soft, timid tap of a child's fist, asking if Mister Silverhair would like to please come out and play. The man called Lestrade rises from his bed to answer. On his doorstep he finds a man with blonde hair and a large scar, bleeding fresh. This man is, of course, Sebastian.

But Lestrade does not know him, and he is confused. "May I help you?" he asks, certain that the gentleman with the scar had simply knocked at the wrong cottage. But Sebastian smiles and says "Oh, yes, I think you might, Mister Lestrade."

Lestrade is not called Lestrade very often, it is rare that he is called anything at all, especially by adults, and he frowns, confused. "I'm sorry. Do I know you?"

"You cut wood for the King, do you not?"

The man called Lestrade nods. "I do."

Sebastian presses a hand to his chest. "It is I who employed you. I am the King's henchman."

At this, the man called Lestrade sank into a bow, as was the custom. "I apologize." he says respectfully, "I did not realize. But why have you come?" Indeed, it was extraordinarily rare for anyone from the castle to ever set foot in the little village. "Does the King require more wood?"

"No." says Sebastian. "But he requires something else. If you come with me, he will explain."

The King stands with his back to them, watching his reflection in the mirror. He has dressed himself in a cloak that is emerald green, and it is spread out on the stone floor behind him, like a pool of velvet moss on the ground. In his hand he holds the same deep red apple, stroking the broken skin of the apple with a forefinger. He turns when they arrive, setting the apple back in the fine gold bowl. There is a fire still burning in the hearth, and the apples are so well polished that the dancing firelight reflects in the fruit.

"Have you brought him?" he asks.

"Yes, sir." says Sebastian, and the woodcutter named Lestrade is so shocked to have been given ordinance with the king that he forgets to bow. Moriarty moves across the cobbles like firelight, smooth and liquid, his long cloak magnificent on the floor behind him. Lestrade is frightened, but he does not tremble. Moriarty stops in front of him.

"Thank you, Sebastian." he says, and his voice is like liquid gold. "You may go."

"Yes sir." says Sebastian again, and leaves the room.

The King reaches out with a delicate hand and touches Lestrade's arm. His touch is ice-cold, like snow. Lestrade shivers, despite himself. "You are strong." the King says quietly.

Lestrade nods his head. "Yes."

"You are a huntsman, are you not?"

"I am."

"And you know your way in the forest."

"I do."

It was said earlier that no one in all of the kingdom could find their way through the forest. But this was not entirely true. There was one man who knew the forest very well, and he had been in and out of the trees and still lived, and this man was Lestrade.

Moriarty seats himself in his great throne, regarding Lestrade from on high. "There is a prisoner who has escaped. He has gone into the forest."

"A prisoner?"

"Yes. You will find him."

"And bring him back?"

"That is not necessary."

Lestrade looks up, confused, but the glittering black eyes are frightening to him, and he looks back down as quickly as he can. "I am afraid I do not understand."

"You will kill him."

"No." says Lestrade, immediately. "I am not a killer. I am only a hunter."

"I am asking for you to hunt."

"Sir, I hunt only animals."

"This is no different."

Lestrade shakes his head. "I will not take a human life. You have chosen the wrong man. I apologize."

"You are the only man who knows the forest."

"I apologize." repeats Lestrade.

"No." says Moriarty. "I apologize. It was wrong of me to ask you."

"Thank you, sir."

"Without offering anything in return." finishes Moriarty. Lestrade looks up again, and the King's eyes gleam even more brightly in the light of the fire. Lestrade dips his head. "I need no money."

"I was not offering money. I thought perhaps something else."

"I want nothing, sir."

"You and I both know, Huntsman, that that is not quite the truth."

"It is the truth, sir."

Moriarty does not reply, only rises from the throne and turns to gaze into the mirror. And then he speaks, in the voice like molten gold, but it is cold now, a command.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what does the Huntsman want most of all?"

Lestrade stares at the mirror, but can see nothing but the reflection of the room. He takes a small step backward, wanting nothing more but to go back to his cottage and return to his life.

"Children." says Moriarty, and Lestrade stops where he is. Moriarty turns in a lazy swirl of cloak. His shoes click on the stone floors when he comes closer. "You wish for children."

"Yes." admits Lestrade. "Very much. But I cannot have children."

"If you do this for me, Huntsman, I will give you children."

Lestrade shakes his head, sorrowful. "I cannot bear them."

"I will give you that power."

"That's impossible."

"For you, maybe."

Moriarty plucks the apple back off the top of the pile in the bowl, caressing it in his hand. "If you kill him, Huntsman, you will have children."

Lestrade shakes his head. "I have no wife. She was lost during the Cold Winter."

"Then I shall bring her back."

Again, Lestrade shakes his head. "It is not possible."

And again, the King replies: "For you, maybe."

"I do not understand."

"I have power, Huntsman." says the King. He traces the skin of the apple with a forefinger. "Power you cannot imagine. Powers of magic, and they are mine to wield as I wish to use them. I have the power to bring your wife back to you, and I will give you children. It is a small trade, is it not? The life of your wife and children for the little life of a criminal?"

For a moment, the hope surges in his heart and he almost cries. To have his wife back, to love him forever, to have his own children – it would be so wonderful. But he is not convinced. "How can I know that you have this power, and you are not lying to me?"

At his words, Moriarty lifted the apple in one hand, and the apple was transformed into a great snake, which slithered on the ground toward Lestrade, who stood, terrified. But Moriarty waved his hand and the snake became still and died and when Moriarty picked it up from the floor it burst into a shower of breadcrumbs which twinkled like stars and then disappeared, and from thin air he brought the snake back, exactly as it was before. "You see?" he asks, as the snake slithers along his arm. "You may touch it, examine it: it is just the same snake as before. I have brought it back, and I can do so for your wife, and I can give you children." And he snapped his fingers and the snake was gone.

Lestrade had never seen such magic, but having watched the snake disappear and reappear he could no longer doubt the truth of the King's words. "And you would give me children?" he asks, awed. "If I do this for you, you will give me children?"

"As many as you like."

"And my wife will be alive?"

"Of course. I have promised."

"And she will love me?"

"Forever."

"And I – I will be a father?"

"Yes."

And at that, Lestrade fell on his knees and promised the King that he would find the criminal and kill him.

"Good." said Moriarty, and he smiled and stroked the apple and licked it and imagined that it was Sherlock's heart. "I have one request to make."

"Anything."

"You will kill him. You will leave the body in the woods, for the animals, but you will bring to me his heart."

"I will do as you ask." promised Lestrade.

"Then you will be a father." said Moriarty, and Lestrade began to weep and kissed the emerald green of his robes as thank you and Moriarty smiled again with white pointed teeth and bit into the apple and after a few moments Lestrade stood and bowed to the King, and packed up his things and went into the forest to find Sherlock and bring back his heart.


End file.
